Housing consents fall in December for first time since June

Seasonally adjusted housing consents fell 2.4% in December to 1,382, their first fall since June last year, Stats NZ said. Excluding apartments, seasonally adjusted consents also fell 1.4% to 1,310, their first fall since May. The weaker building figures tally with data published yesterday from the Reserve Bank of only weak lending growth to households and a slump in lending to businesses. Here is the release from Stats NZ:

The trend for the number of new homes authorised (excluding apartments) continued to rise in December 2009, Statistics New Zealand said today. This rise in trend came despite a fall of 1.4 percent in the seasonally adjusted number in December 2009. "While the seasonally adjusted number has dropped slightly this month, it follows six months of increases and the series is still trending upwards," business statistics manager Louise Holmes-Oliver said. The trend for new housing has been increasing since March 2009, although the level is still considerably lower than it was before the middle of 2007. The trend level is now similar to the levels seen in mid-2008. Building consents were issued for 1,260 new housing units (excluding apartments) in December 2009. Consents were issued for 93 new apartment units. The value of residential building consents was $494 million, an increase of 12 percent compared with December 2008, while the value of non-residential building consents was $404 million, an increase of 5.6 percent. "In 2009, consents were issued for 14,425 new homes, including apartments. This is the lowest number issued for a calendar year since the series began in 1966 and is due to very low numbers at the beginning of the year," Mrs Holmes-Oliver said. The value of consents issued for residential buildings fell 18 percent in the year ended December 2009, while the value for non-residential buildings was flat, up 0.2 percent, compared with the December 2008 year.